Those of you who know me know that I love Nepal. My first of four visits to Nepal was in 2002 and I have been hooked ever since. My Everest expedition in 2003 changed my life and my base camp expedition in 2008 was my first time acting as a professional guide. We also raised over $20,000 for charity on that adventure. I am leaving tomorrow (Friday Sept 25th) on a new challenge: building a school and library in the remote village of Chyangba in Nepal. Chyangba is a special place since it is home to my lead (sidar) Sherpa, Ngima. Ngima just summated Mt. Everest for the first time in May. Ngima has been at my side each and every trip I have made to Nepal and he is family to me.
The village where he grew up, where his mother lives, and where most of the Sherpa he hires for my trips live is Chyangba. Last year volunteers built a school there. This year we raised enough money to get a lot of books and get every kid a uniform. Now we are building a library. The structure is mostly built, we are headed there for the next 10 days to complete the project.
Joining me are:
Notice that 4 MVP are coming (including myself) representing 3.5 countries (since I am from USA but live in Hong Kong.) The four of us have decided to adopt Chyangba and will continue to return and donate to the village. I hope to create an endowment for the school and library and enable them to have internet access so the school in New York that we raised money for last year will be able to become a sister school and allow the kids to web cam each other. Next year we hope to bring running water to the village (we need $20,000 for that.)
I hope that as a community we can also help out. We are fortunate to have great jobs and great opportunity. When I told geeks in Germany this week at Basta! about my adventure, several handed me cash on the spot. (And due to the strength of the Euro it turns out to be a lot of money.) Individual members of Telerik have given me money as well and the company as a whole has supported my efforts. I spoke to the boys at arch-rival DevExpress and they are game too. If you want, you can donate here.
In addition to the 4 MVPs that are going, we have the organizers of the charity coming and Richard Campbell is bringing his wife and friend Roger from Vancouver. Roger is a carpenter, who brought about 90 lbs of tools and supplies. We spent all day today in Hong Kong looking for containers to pack the equipment in. (We found a good sturdy bag to get it all there.)
I’ll be going offline for two weeks, see you in early October….
